New at ArtPrize 2013 - Internet Cat Videos!

GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - For those who thought that ArtPrize had every art form and presentation outlet covered, there is now a internet cat videofesitval coming for 2013.

The Walker Art Center of Minneapolis is bringing their Internet Cat Video Festival to ArtPrize for 2013. The festival is a worldwide tour that brings online communities together in the real world.

On Friday, September 27th at 8:00pm, at Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids will be watching internet cat videos along with several other cities, including Portland, Oakland, and Vienna, Austria. The festival began as an experiment to see what happens when crowds of people leave their computers and watch online videos of cats together in real life.

"The Internet Cat Video Festival was born out of the Walker's experiments blending technology and public space. There's an energy in online communities that can be hard to translate to the real world," said Kevin Buist, ArtPrize Director of Exhibitions in a press release. "Walker's The Internet Cat Video Festival is an example of that, and so is the voting that happens as ArtPrize."

More than 10,000 people gathered at the first festival last summer in Minneapolis.

In addition to the Walker's collection of videos, the ArtPrize version of the Internet Cat Video Festival will feature videos specially submitted and voted on by the ArtPrize community. Artists, members, volunteers, and attendees are invited to submit a YouTube or Vimeo link of their own homemade cutest, funniest and most profound cat videos to kevin@artprize.org by August 8. Following this, the cat video finalists will be published on ArtPrize's blog and voting for the best ArtPrize cat videos will be open online until September 6. The winning videos will be presented at ArtPrize's #CatVidFest.